{"id":12,"date":"2006-12-29T18:00:32","date_gmt":"2006-12-29T05:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/?p=12"},"modified":"2007-02-13T23:41:11","modified_gmt":"2007-02-13T10:41:11","slug":"bula-vinaka-fiji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"Bula Vinaka! Fiji"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\">Bula, from Fiji.<\/p>\n<p>The start of a 5 night holiday (and some work) to The Warwick resort on Fiji&#8217;s  Coral Coast.<\/p>\n<p>Kevin and Marianna Billington are to be wed at sunset, New Years day, 2007. I  couldn&#8217;t possibly think of a better place for a wedding. I travelled with Kirst  (www.ikirst.com), and the Billington family to the resort.<\/p>\n<p>Our Air New Zealand flight touches down soon after 8am, and the temperature is  already cracking 30\u00c2\u00b0C.<\/p>\n<p>Our shuttle whisked us out of the airport, and through Nadi, stopping at a few  local idyllic resorts on the waters&#8217; edge.<\/p>\n<p>It was upon leaving Nadi, that the first (and only signs of the coup) was being  staged by Bainimarama.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blogpics\/fiji_03.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Despite the intense heat, the rolling hills and pasture are saturated in green.  It&#8217;s in fact the wet season, where the most rain falls in January &#8211; something I  wasn&#8217;t quite looking forward to!<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blogpics\/fiji_04.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We continued via the bumpy main highway South-East, where the max national limit  is 80km\/h. &#8211; Any faster, and the potholes would blow your tyres, and break your  shocks. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p>Two hours after leaving Nadi, we arrived at The Warwick, with only one thing on  mind &#8211; going for a swim.<\/p>\n<p>That idea lasted all of two minutes, before I saw my first of many sea snakes&#8230;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"267\" height=\"400\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blogpics\/fiji_05.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The kayak however, seemed a much better option.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the day, was spent in the air-conditioned rooms, and also made our  way to the Club Lounge bar, where for the next 5 days, we had our fair share of  free cocktails. Kirst and I also met many great guests, travelling mostly from  Australia and New Zealand. (please drop a comment by, and say hello).<\/p>\n<p>With lost appetites due to the heat, it was time for our first Fijian tropical  sunset&#8230;it was to die for.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blogpics\/fiji_07.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blogpics\/fiji_08.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blogpics\/fiji_06.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bula, from Fiji. The start of a 5 night holiday (and some work) to The Warwick resort on Fiji&#8217;s Coral Coast. Kevin and Marianna Billington are to be wed at sunset, New Years day, 2007. I couldn&#8217;t possibly think of a better place for a wedding. I travelled with Kirst (www.ikirst.com), and the Billington family [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-landscape","category-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/warrenwilliams.co.nz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}